Unexpected
by Rhiannon A. Christy
Summary: Darcy never expected to care for her boss. Steamy oneshot, mild, but still...


Darcy blinked away the stars that were dancing in front of her eyes, the motion releasing two fat tears. She tried to catch her breath, but her lungs wouldn't obey. For fuck's sake it had never been like that. Sure she had found herself breathless and speechless, but never had a man actually brought her to tears.

The man in question reached a hand up, and with calloused fingers gently wiped the tears away. His rumbling laugh vibrated through her from between her thighs to her chest where he was casually draped across her. She wanted to roll her eyes at him, but all she could do was pry the fingers of her right hand from around the hood of the car and wrap her them around his hips.

It wasn't fair how quickly he had been able to silence her, or more so how much she actually had enjoyed it. She wasn't supposed to have gotten personal, it had been a job and now she laid completely undone by her boss. She wondered when it had all gotten away from her. Had it been that first night when she found him restless in the common room, determined to upgrade the tv just so he wouldn't have to sleep? When she had wrestled the tools out of his hands and forced him to drink a glass of warm milk and honey before watching over him as he fell asleep on the couch? Or had it been the night she found him gasping for breath out on the landing pad, when she had held him as he forced everything out? Whenever it had been, Darcy had found herself caring for the man wrapped tightly around her.

She had become his friend, someone he could spill to without the worry that she would tell anyone. Someone he could lean on. There had always been an intimacy to their friendship, a kind of tenderness that went beyond what she had with anyone else. Still, she had never thought that things would end up where they were now. She searched her mind trying to find the moment when things changed, because as far as she could tell everything had been normal when she had gone to give him his dinner earlier…

* * *

Looking out over the table in the dining-room and counting Darcy could only roll her eyes. Tony had been the one to start up the damn team dinners in the first place. She wouldn't have been so annoyed, but this was the seventh one in a row he had missed. She knew he had been having problems with nightmares again, but that was all the more reason for him to spend time with the rest of them. She huffed as she waved the others on to go ahead and start and grabbed an empty plate.

"If you continue to bring him food he will never have reason to come up here." Jane watched as Darcy piled the plate high with enough food to feed both her and Tony. It had been like that for a week, Tony would hide out in his lab or wherever and Darcy would bring him food. Darcy assured her that he was only distracted by Science! But Jane knew better, they all did. Tony had grown paler lately with purple bruises under his eyes.

"And if I don't take him food he will completely forget to eat and one day we will find him passed out in a puddle of WD-40." She wished she was kidding, but Tony could be worse than Jane. At least with her old boss and friend the old tummy rumblings would eventually pull her away from her work. Not Tony, if someone didn't monitor him he would work without sleep or food for days. He only ever remembered to drink because of JARVIS.

"Darce, this isn't your job you are not…"

"I'm not Pepper I know, but Pepper is not Pepper anymore, at least for Tony and he needs someone and right now I'm the only one that he will listen to." She grabbed two forks from the drawer, her face turned away from the others. After Pepper left, leaving her in charge of Tony, she had to deal with those outside of their circle making snide remarks about how she was trying to replace an unreplaceable Pepper Potts. It bothered her, Pepper had been a good friend, hell still was. When Pepper had asked her to take care of Tony, Darcy had only been too willing to help out both of her friends.

"That is not what I was going to say. I was going to say you are not his babysitter." Jane felt a pang in her chest at her friend's reaction. She had heard what others said about Darcy, and it angered her. Darcy was a replacement for no one.

"No, I'm his friend just like I am yours. You know I would do the same thing for you, so don't start on me." Not giving anyone else time to say anything, Darcy marched out of the room and straight to the elevator. Thankfully JARVIS didn't need telling and sent her straight to Tony.

She blinked as she stepped out of the elevator and noticed what floor she was on. For the past week Tony had been working on the design for a new suit, which meant of course that he was in his lab. Though instead of standing outside of Tony's personal R&amp;D labs she was standing in the private garage.

"Tony? Where the hell are you?" Darcy took a few steps into the large open area and blinked at the various cars. She knew much of his original collection was destroyed in Malibu, but it seemed as though he had been working on rebuilding. She lost her breath for a moment, he had a fucking 1955 T-bird; white with black interior. What can she say, she had a thing for classics.

"You don't have to shout." Tony slid himself out from under his current project, sitting up to look over at the woman who interrupted him. Not that he really needed visual confirmation, there was only one person in the tower now that would deliberately seek him out.

"Well, how was supposed to know, this place is the size of a small town." Bypassing the T-bird, which she mentally promised to visit later, she set the plate of food down on one of the various rolling worktables Tony had scattered about the place.

She looked past him to the car he had been working on and just stopped. She wasn't an expert by any means, but she knew enough to know that what she was looking at was not just some car. She wasn't even sure what it was besides probably being another nod to Tony's ego.

"Exaggerating again." Tony fiddled with the rag in his hands, his eyes raking over the woman before him. Darcy was no mini-Potts in a pencil skirt and pair of Louboutins. She had her own style, and very often that included spending the day in her pjs. Today though she had on a cute white sundress covered in little pink flowers and a simple pair of pink flats. It wasn't revealing in the least, but on her everything could become sensual. And that was a line of thought he knew he really shouldn't be following down, yet one he explored quite often.

"Probably not as much as you. So, are you going to get up here and eat or do I have to get down there and feed you?" Darcy was really regretting her choice in clothing as she looked around her. Normally the lab was pretty clean, as long as you didn't lean against one of the machines he was working on. The garage on the other hand…well it looked as though Tony had been busy as most everything around her, including Tony, was covered in grease.

"How about a compromise, how about you come down here and I'll feed you?" Put him down for dirty old man of the year award. Not that Tony normally cared, before Pepper pretty much all he cared about was whether or not they were of age and if there was some guy out there would try and kill him. After, well after he had only slept with two women, both his age and both only once to try and get Pepper out of his head. He had never planned on hitting on Darcy, she had become his friend, but maybe that was why he found himself so attracted.

"Tony, you have to eat." Darcy felt a blush rise up her neck and along her cheeks, and she hoped to hell that Tony didn't notice. The man flirted with anything so she shouldn't get so flustered when he did it to her.

"I will, I promise, but you have to come down here first." He made a halfhearted effort to clean the grease from him and the floor beside him. It really didn't do much good as the rag he was using was soaked with the black stuff already.

"My dress…" It wasn't as though she was wearing some designer outfit, she had found it at a thrift-store in New Mexico for a dollar.

"Is cute, but I can buy you a hundred more. In fact if you come down here I will give you my card and you can go shopping to your heart's content." He had tried to spoil her before, but she had laughed him off and told him she was fine in her Goodwill gear. After that he had found other ways to spoil her, making sure her favorite coffee was always stocked or getting some lackey to go out at the ass crack of dawn on Saturdays so a box of fresh baked vanilla-bean éclairs would be waiting for her. Unlike with the clothes, Darcy never complained about the food.

"That was evil." Darcy sighed, she really could use some new clothes. Actually there was this kick ass pair of boots she had been trying to hint around to Jane about for her birthday, with Tony's card she could get a pair in every color. You know, just to make him feel better.

Realizing he had her beat, she picked up the plate and carefully curled herself down beside him. He steadied her as she tried to balance the plate on her lap and quickly plucked a fork from her hand. He took a moment to look down at the selection of food, smiling as he noticed several of his favorites. He speared a shrimp on the fork and lifted it to her mouth.

"Tony…" She really should have known he wasn't kidding. With a roll of her eyes she opened her mouth and took a bite. After the shrimp was gone he followed it up with a scallop dripping in butter. She sighed but allowed him to feed it to her along with a couple of more before she decided he needed to keep up the other side of the deal.

"Your turn." Forgoing the fork, Darcy picked up a spear of asparagus and held the tip to his lips. With a look she could only describe as cheeky, he bit down the spear as far as he could go. She felt her heart stutter as his breath washed over her hand. She tried to cover it up by setting the rest down on the plate, but he grabbed her wrist and brought it back up. This time his lips curled over her fingers and she just about lost it.

"I think I would like a bit of the lobster now." Still holding her hand, he reached out with his other to take the second fork and then tossed both across the garage.

"But…" What the fuck was going on? When had their harmless flirting turned into this? Carefully she pulled her wrist away from him, and keeping eye contact she reached down to pull a bit of the soft, steaming flesh of lobster. She dipped it in the melted butter and brought it up to his mouth.

Tony leaned over a little bit, taking in the bite of lobster along with her fingers. One by one he twirled his tongue around her digits, delighting in the way her breath hitched and her cheeks pinked. This hadn't been his plan when he had seen her in his garage, but he knew that sometimes you just had to go with the flow. That being said, he allowed her to pop her fingers from his mouth just as he reached for the plate and set it on top of a box of tools.

"You are going to eat more than that." Darcy felt faint all of a sudden as Tony leaned in and cupped the back of her head. She wondered if this was what a deer felt like just before the mountain lion pounced.

"Oh, I plan on eating much more." He leaned in fully before she could make some snarky comment and claimed her lips with his own. He tried to go slowly, but the little squeak and sigh she gave at his actions spurred him on. He gathered her up against him, his hands making quick work of the zipper on the back of her dress.

"Tony…what…" Yeah, this…this wasn't what she had planned when she brought him his dinner. Alright, so she had thought about kissing him, he was Tony Stark after all, everyone thought about kissing him. It was kind of like with Steve and Bucky….and she probably shouldn't be thinking about other men when she had Tony leaving little stinging nips along her cleavage.

"You can say no and leave if you wish…but by God don't." Tony had the cute little sundress down and around her waist by that point, his lips skimming along the frilled edge of her bra.

"I'm not going anywhere." She wasn't sure where that decision came from, but as Tony stood up and pulled her along with him she was sure in the knowledge that it was the right one to make.

"Good." Tony pushed the dress all the way to the floor before lifting Darcy up and setting her on the roof of the car. He was sure an artist or writer could go on and on about how the paleness of her skin contrasted beautifully with the red of the car, but all Tony could think was how the color, his color, suited her.

Darcy squealed a bit at the cold metal hitting her heated skin. She had the momentary thought that she hoped whatever Tony had been working on wouldn't explode under her, but that was quickly whisked away as Tony pressed one rough hand at the base of her throat.

His fingers skimmed along her clavicle, stopping every now and then to tap out something before he flattened his hand and slid it down between her breasts, over her stomach and down over the pooling heat between her legs. She arched her back as his hand moved, pressing up into him. He slipped his hand behind her and repeated the gesture only opposite as he slid his hand up the curve of her spine and up into her hair.

He had her panting and he hadn't even really done anything yet. She looked up at him and smiled softly at the look on his face. She had seen that look before, it was the same one he got when he finished a project and admired his work. For most it wouldn't seem all that romantic, but for Tony that was practically a declaration.

Leaning down, Tony slid his free hand behind her back and flicked the bra snap open as he set his forehead on hers. He wasn't sure where this was going, or how it would turn out in the end. What he did know was that for the first time and a long while he felt calm, the fear and anxiety was gone and he was pretty sure it was because of the woman cradling him between her thighs.

They moved slowly from then on, hands, fingers, tongues and lips exploring as though time had stood still just for them. Clothes disappeared only to end up on the floor soaked in grease. Tony nipped at her throat, Darcy scratched at his back and thighs. She sighed, he groaned, and they both shouted as they reached the edge and pushed each other off.

When all was said and done, Darcy laid there boneless and breathless with Tony draped lazily over her. They laughed and exchanged soft kisses as they cooled down. Tony was the first to speak, his voice as relaxed as the look on his face.

"In retrospect we probably shouldn't have done that on this car, I haven't stabilized everything yet." At least he knew that the thing wouldn't blow up at the slightest touch.

"Tony!" Darcy reached up and slapped him across the chest, or tried to anyway, he had truly left her weak.

"Hey, we didn't blow up so you can't yell at me." He gave her a face splitting smile. She of course just shook her head.

"It is the principle of the thing. I really don't want to have to worry about blowing up every time I fuck you." Darcy bit her lip as soon as the words left. She probably shouldn't have assumed that there would be a next time, all of this could have easily been him just blowing off steam. Thankfully, Tony just laughed and pressed a soft kiss to the tip of her nose.

"Sorry, that is just a chance you will have to take. Come on, let's head upstairs. You can make some of those famous grilled cheeses of yours that Thor is always going on about, and I promise the bed is in no danger of blowing up."

It only took Darcy a second before she was taking his hand and walking in the altogether to a secure elevator that would take them straight to Tony's rooms. None of this might have been planned, but sometimes the best things came when you never expected them. And Darcy was pretty sure this was one of those times.

* * *

Author's Note: So, one: there is too few Darcy/Tony romantic fic, so here we are. And two, this actually came out of the fact that I had to watch Pretty Woman for my Relations in Business final (seriously had the coolest teacher, our final was to watch two movies and answer 16 questions for each about applying what we learned in class, then we discussed them while eating chocolates.) and when the piano scene came on all I could think about was Tony bending Darcy over a car or his worktable and running his hand down her chest and stomach.

**Disclaimer:**** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**


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